Guild Wars 2

Loved WvW, but last I played I had a duo core and yeah…5 fps wasn’t fun.

Got a i7-4700k and a MB for $260 at microcenter. Downloading the game again.

Will this be enough at stock speeds to enjoy WvW, or will I need to OC it a bit. Can go 3.9-4ghz at stock volts but temps are pretty high on the stock fan, and this is really close to the turbo, so would all 4 cores at that speed help?

If I need a OC, could anyone recommend a good cooler? Chip seems like it isn’t a bad batch Got it at .990 volts at stock speeds, so would it be worth water cooling it?

I also have a GTX 260 216 core OC to about 280-285 speeds (don’t laugh now haha). Will this be ok at low settings in WvW? It is close to a vanilla GTX 460 in 3dmark and this game is direct x 9. Little short on money can’t decide if I should go video card or Water cooler, or maybe budget cooler, or is stock cpu fine? Found a MSI 7870ghz edition on newegg for 130 bucks with rebate. Thanks in advance.

GW2 will always benefit more from CPU.

Deffinatly worth getting a aftermarket cooler, the stock ones are only ‘barely’ enough for the haswell chips.

For a 4770k, yes it would be good to have the core speed the same no matter how many cores are in use, specialy for GW2.
Water cooling ? ..well unless its a h100, its not worth it becouse u can get equaly good cooling from a cheaper top end air cooler than u can with the lower range AIO water coolers like the H60 and H80. You just need to make sure that if u do get a top end air cooler, that u have enough space inside ur case and check ur RAM height. And ofc if u get the H100 AIO water cooler, make sure u have space for the Dual 120mm rad.

Some top end air cooler are the Noctua NH-D14, and the Thermalright Silver Arrow, though im sure u could find other twin tower air coolers that come close.

SolarNova.1052:

GW2 will always benefit more from CPU.

Deffinatly worth getting a aftermarket cooler, the stock ones are only ‘barely’ enough for the haswell chips.

For a 4770k, yes it would be good to have the core speed the same no matter how many cores are in use, specialy for GW2.
Water cooling ? ..well unless its a h100, its not worth it becouse u can get equaly good cooling from a cheaper top end air cooler than u can with the lower range AIO water coolers like the H60 and H80. You just need to make sure that if u do get a top end air cooler, that u have enough space inside ur case and check ur RAM height. And ofc if u get the H100 AIO water cooler, make sure u have space for the Dual 120mm rad.

Some top end air cooler are the Noctua NH-D14, and the Thermalright Silver Arrow, though im sure u could find other twin tower air coolers that come close.

Thank you for the response and advice. At .990 volts/stock I7 settings my high temps in gw2 before I went to sleep last night in town/events were mid 60’s C.,but my god is that stock fan bad at stock voltage. 15-20 degrees higher. Video card was running at 100 percent load holding me back and the stuttering is irritating as hell at 1080p (prob the 896 MB of Vram just isn’t good at this res). Gonna grab the video card next, and then that Noctua or the H100i you recommended. This OC GTX260 216 really puts out the heat and sucks the watts as well and I am on a 600 watt corsair so I think a 7870 using 1/3rd less wattage might be a good idea before pushing the OC.

I had no idea running all cores higher would be that big a fps increase. If this thing didn’t undervolt I would grab the Noctua or Water cooler before the video card, because high 70’s and sometimes 80’s in games is just silly. Will definitely be grabbing a better cooler though.

I got the coolermaster HAF 912 and it seems like air flow is decent and ram is Gskill Ares which is low profile. Should have enough room for the Noctua/H100i. Undervolting a “k” is just silly, but you are right, this stock fan is garbage.

Two more questions. I see a lot of differing opinions on cooling compound. Many say artic silver is now junk? You have a very nice OC and rig, and was wondering what thermal grease you recommend.

Also core unparking. Is this something I should do on the I7 Haswell or is this only for older chips/AMD’s. OS is Win 7 64 bit.

IF ur GPU is maxed out now, then obviosly uping the CPU clock wont help much during such times that ur GPU is maxed, however it will still help out in busy area’s like LA and WvW where , for example, u can frequently expect to see FPS around the 30-40 zone in LA limited by the CPU. I will at this point mention its not that a CPu like 4770k or my own is to slow, its that GW2 is badly optimized and u need to brute force ur way through it using high Clock speeds.

I personaly use the Nocuta NT-H1 paste that comes with the NH-D14, its by no means the best, but for a stock compound that comes with a HS its very good. Between that and the best paste out there is only a few degrees. My temps hit about 83c when my CPU is put under full load (100% across all 6 cores /12 threads) on Prime95 , but ingame it barely hits 60c for the most part the fans are only running at 900-1000RPM out of its 1250 RPM max, even at max they are almost perfectly silent ..noctua fans may look like crap but they are the best.

Unparking ur cores ‘may’ help ..but tbh i dont think u will notice anything, it makes more of a difference on slower CPU’s. My cores are unparked, i don it a while back , didnt notice anything but left it like it anyway.

The Are’s RAM is fine, even the RipJaw series is fine, it was more a warning for if u were using Corsair RAM as they tend to have tall Heatsinks/fins.

Oh and 600W for a Haswell bassed rig is plenty, even with ur old GPU its fine.
A 600W PSU on a haswell rig could handle a 4770k + GTX 780ti …ur GTX 260 pulls at stock 180w at the most ..a 780ti pulls 250w.
A 4770k uses very little wattage ~90w at full load at stock.

Stock fans are meant to run the processor at stock speeds. They do their jobs as intended.
just my 2 cents there

SolarNova.1052:

IF ur GPU is maxed out now, then obviosly uping the CPU clock wont help much during such times that ur GPU is maxed, however it will still help out in busy area’s like LA and WvW where , for example, u can frequently expect to see FPS around the 30-40 zone in LA limited by the CPU. I will at this point mention its not that a CPu like 4770k or my own is to slow, its that GW2 is badly optimized and u need to brute force ur way through it using high Clock speeds.

I personaly use the Nocuta NT-H1 paste that comes with the NH-D14, its by no means the best, but for a stock compound that comes with a HS its very good. Between that and the best paste out there is only a few degrees. My temps hit about 83c when my CPU is put under full load (100% across all 6 cores /12 threads) on Prime95 , but ingame it barely hits 60c for the most part the fans are only running at 900-1000RPM out of its 1250 RPM max, even at max they are almost perfectly silent ..noctua fans may look like crap but they are the best.

Unparking ur cores ‘may’ help ..but tbh i dont think u will notice anything, it makes more of a difference on slower CPU’s. My cores are unparked, i don it a while back , didnt notice anything but left it like it anyway.

The Are’s RAM is fine, even the RipJaw series is fine, it was more a warning for if u were using Corsair RAM as they tend to have tall Heatsinks/fins.

Oh and 600W for a Haswell bassed rig is plenty, even with ur old GPU its fine.
A 600W PSU on a haswell rig could handle a 4770k + GTX 780ti …ur GTX 260 pulls at stock 180w at the most ..a 780ti pulls 250w.
A 4770k uses very little wattage ~90w at full load at stock.

Thanks again. Will be grabbing that cooler and a a vid card. Saves me 10 bucks on thermal paste.

Totally agree on the optimization. The -E chips at stock are killing it on newer games like BF4 and the 4700k is under them with a big gap to the quads. With no monthly fee though, I doubt they will optimize it until an expansion though, so we got to do what we got to do.

Even if they do optimize this game later on, the lower temps on a pulled back clock and silence are worth it and with all 8 threads and up humming, the heat is going to be higher then it is on 3-4 now. Might be why everyone is crashing on the BF4 forum. With optimization comes more heat, so it would make sense. I can’t imagine the stock fan and stock voltage on a I7 and up is good in a 8 thread game.